> However (to paraphrase), "One can die as surely from a million pinpricks> as from a single sword thrust.". I get plenty of junk mail from random> ad agencies -- et tu, Chris? (Max, actually, in case he's still following> this.)> > The danger in the snowball and all chain letters is their exponential> nature. The note isn't just sent to 100 people and back -- it's sent to> "everybody you know". I personally could make it to over 1000 people> easily -- I wonder how many each of them can reach? Follow that exponential> growth curve out a few steps and the traffic could become dizzying, and> well-connected people could end up getting dozens of copies without sending> out a single one -- no wonder chain letters have such a bad rep! Some> net.gurus I know have been predicting the meltdown of the Internet backbones> for a while now (apparently it's already started) -- this sort of thing> certainly doesn't help matters.> > Kennita (wondering why she doesn't just fiddle while Rome burns)>

Do you object to the viral nature of the information even when the
content is interesting?

For an ideological life form like a chain letter to survive, it must
have some sort of worthwhile content or it simply will not be copied. I
often find that the people who scream about chain letters (because they
have a line saying "copy me" somewhere in the text) are the same people
who send me junk mail containing the latest net jokes and cute ascii
pictures.